Pardon The Interruption (Olympic curling edition)
And I thought the only person getting stoned at the Olympics was Bode Miller. Ah well, time for an in-depth review of everything important that happened at the Pro Bowl. The NFC won. Err, that's it.

One thing that always rankles me about the Pro Bowl, although I can understand the reasons behind it, are the rules for defenses. Standard 4-3 alignment, no blitzing, man-to-man coverage, basically pretty vanilla straightforward defense designed to make the offenses look good. No wonder Ty Law of the Jets felt at home there this year.

And what is it with the floral designs for the coaches' shirts? They are truly repulsive and even make the Orlando Thunder shirts from the 1991 World League look good. The Hawaii college coach, June Jones, now he can get away with the lei round the neck and the beach wear. But just try and picture someone like Andy Reid or Mike Holmgren in one of those shirts - hey, mix in a salad or two or go back to Montego Bay!

Nice of Tom Brady to decide to skip this year's Pro Bowl under the pretence of "a sports hernia injury". Didn't affect him playing in the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach last weekend did it? Anyone see him running down the 18th fairway without a problem on Sky's highlight clips? Then again, I can think of a bunch of things I'd bunk off to play Pebble Beach.

This is the real dead period of the gridiron season with still another three weeks until free agency starts. Roy Cummings has just completed his 100th Sudoku of the off-season and is busy waiting for all the calls from players' agents, trying to stir up newspaper interest in their clients. Believe me, his phone doesn't stop ringing for March from these slimeballs.

Time for some plaudits - Lee Bromfield, take a bow. Excellent columns throughout the season mate and a deserved winner of the Writer of the Year Award. Martin Fennelly is going to kill you for taking away his title though. Looking forward to the next one already but thanks to the likes of Paul Greenfield, Andy Coish and Wayne Maw for stepping into the breach with their own efforts.

Of course the only real sporting event taking place right now are the Winter Olympics in Turin (where were the Mini Coopers and Michael Caine?) Word has reached me that the Oakland Raiders won a gold medal in the ski-ing as they've been going downhill faster than anyone recently.

The St.Louis Rams announced this week that their new assistant offensive line coach is going to be one Jim Chaney. Wonder if they'll use the shotgun with a Chaney on their staff?